We are very excited to have Professor Marwan Rashed, for the next installment of the Bisan Lecture Series, on Wednesday October 16th, at 7PM Palestine time, who will speak on “Universalism vs. Orientalism. Some Thoughts about, and in the wake of, Edward Said”. Register here to get the Zoom link!
We are very excited to have Professor Marwan Rashed, for the next installment of the Bisan Lecture Series, on Wednesday October 16th, at 7PM Palestine time.
Register here to get the Zoom link!
Title: Universalism vs. Orientalism. Some Thoughts about, and in the wake of, Edward Said
Abstract: My contribution will focus on the complex relationship between the current eradication of Palestine and the state of Arab studies in Western universities. Of course, the perpetrators of genocide do not need a sophisticated intellectual substructure to carry out their crimes. All it takes is a few supremacist declarations and international complicity. However, by stressing certain fundamental aspects of Arab and Hebrew science and philosophy in their relationship to the Latin world, I shall explore what appears to be, by contrast, a diffuse relationship between the current drama and an evolution in academic knowledge and practice over the last few decades. This will involve a reflection both on the role that academic ideology has played in the dehumanization of the Palestinian people (and Arab peoples in general), and on the way in which, in return, the current genocide is transforming the meaning and mission of the university in liberal democracies.
Short Biography: Marwan Rashed, born in 1971, is an alumnus of the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris. After completing a PhD in classical philology at the University of Hamburg, he returned to France, where he was successively research fellow at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, ordinary professor of classical philology at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, and finally, since 2013, professor of the history of Greek and Arabic philosophy at the Sorbonne. He has published extensively on all periods of Greek philosophy, from the Presocratics to Byzantium, via Plato, Aristotle and the Hellenistic philosophers, many of whose texts he has rediscovered in the original Greek or in Arabic translation, as well as on many philosophers of classical Islam. His research has also shed light on certain little-known aspects of the transfer of Byzantine and Arab knowledge to the Latin West in the Middle Ages and during early modernity. He is currently working on a new critical edition of the Greek text of Aristotle’s Metaphysics.
Register here! You can find the list of previous and upcoming lectures on our website.
The Bisan lecture on September 11th was delivered by prof. Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond (University of Nice). Prof. Lévy-Leblond is a physicist and epistemologist. His recent activity has focused on uncovering the deep interconnections between science, society and history. Besides the obvious and pervasive impact of science and technology on society, Jean-Marc’s work highlights the more subtle but equally significant influence of society’s priorities, economic conditions and historical changes on the science being produced. The universality of science—prof. Lévy-Leblond argues—must be reconsidered. In his Bisan lecture, Jean-Marc demonstrated his thesis drawing from examples in ancient Greece and Rome, the rise of the Arab-Islamic civilization, Japan’s Edo era, and even a plausible alien civilisation, evolved in the ocean from invertebrates not unlike Earth’s cephalopods. He found that the subjects being investigated by science, and the language used to describe its findings, all are to a great extent a product of the societies in which intellectual exploration occurs. There are, therefore, several sciences, and as societies rise and fall, the motivations behind their scientific pursuits fade—though their results remain valid. Our current scientific era, fostered by the technological demands of capitalism and its will of dominion over nature, and shaped by the universalistic ideology of the religion and politics in the early modern Europe, is but one more incarnation of the same pattern. It is now global, but there is no guarantee that it will endure. You can download the notes and watch the video of Lévy-Leblond’s lecture here.
This lecture is sponsored by the Bisan Center for Research and Development and Scientists for Palestine.
In light of the urgent need to assist the people of Gaza, who are currently experiencing immeasurable loss of life and widespread devastation, please read this humanitarian aid appeal from ANERA, forwarded to us by a friend of BLS, Dr. Sara Roy of Harvard University. Hoping to see many of you at this webinar, we send you our best regards.
The Bisan Lecture Series Steering Committee
BLS Statement of purpose In concert with Scientists for Palestine and the Bisan Center for Research and Development, and in keeping with their joint commitment to full integration of Palestine in the global community of learning, the Bisan Lecture Series sponsors discourses on subjects of cultural, scientific, and societal importance by leading research experts and public intellectuals of varied heritage and viewpoint. The interactive webinars are free and open to the public, and recordings of each will be posted soon afterward.